The US housing department, helmed by the former neurosurgeon Ben Carson, has proposed a new mission statement in which the pledge to build “inclusive” communities “free from discrimination” is removed.

The proposal comes just two weeks after the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services changed its mission statement to eliminate a passage that described the US as “a nation of immigrants”.

A 5 March internal memo, obtained by the Huffington Post, contained a draft of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) new, shortened mission statement, which emphasizes self-sufficiency. The author described it as “an effort to align HUD’s mission with the secretary’s priorities and that of the administration”.